By Don Heckman

Diana Krall’s continuing quest to widen her already far reaching repertoire has led her to some of the most memorable songs of the ’70s and ’80s in this fine new Verve outing. I’ve been hearing, seeing and writing about Diana in action since the ’90s. And I’ve been consistently awed by her capacity to apply her rich musicality to whatever genre she tries on for size.

Wallflower is no exception. I haven’t viewed the songs of the ’70s and ’80s with the sort of affection triggered by tunes from other decades in the Great Songbook. But sung with Diana’s remarkable story telling skills, virtually everything here comes vividly to life.

That said, it’s no surprise that the best known and most successful five or six numbers in the twelve song program have the greatest impact. The list begins with Diana’s laid back takes on the Mommas and Poppas’ “California Dreaming,” the Eagles’ “Desperado” and “I Can’t Tell You Why,” Leon Russell’s “Superstar” and Elton John’s “Sorry Seems To Be the Hardest Word.”

Add to that a pair of captivating duos in which Diana is joined by Michael Buble on Gilbert O’Sullivan’s “Alone Again” and by Bryan Adams on Randy Newman’s “Feels Like Home.”

As if all that weren’t enough, there are a pair of lesser known, but no less compelling songs: the title tune, “Wallflower” by Bob Dylan and a new Paul McCartney song, “IF I Take You Home Tonight.” And top it off with Jim Croce’s “Operator That’s Not the Way It Feels,” the English band 10cc’s “I’m Not In Love” and the Australian band Crowded House’s “Don’t Dream It’s Over.”

That’s a daunting program of songs, one that would be a challenge for almost any singer who comes to mind. But Diana, as noted above, handles them all superbly, aided by the rich musicality and the touching emotional honesty at the center of her art.

Additional credit should also be offered to producer/arranger David Foster. His arrangements, lush with cushions of string textures, provide a perfect setting for Diana, allowing her to offer her lyrical narratives at every level of sound and feeling.

The only missing element in an otherwise irresistible musical banquet was the up front proximity of Diana’s piano playing. For the great majority of her career, her singing and her piano have been intimately mated, with one continually inspiring the other. And the bolder presence of that creative duality could have provided the energy to transform Wallflower from a fine album to a great one.

Of Music from Norway and Allentown, PA

By Brian Arsenault

The Tord Gustavsen Quartet: Extended Circle (ECM Records)

If God is Dead, his demise hasn’t prevented artists of serious purpose from seeking the spiritual, nay, creating the spiritual. Sacred music is never far from the mind and spirit of Tord Gustafsen whose compositions dominate Extended Circle.

Perhaps our doubting, questioning age had to bring forth artists who seek for what has been lost in the materialism of modernism. More than a century ago, the largely forgotten great American writer Sherwood Anderson bemoaned the loss of a sense of community, overwhelmed by the acquisitiveness of the modern times. Imagine his horror today as we all rush for more stuff that beeps and hums and sometimes catches fire in our pockets.

So here is Gustavsen and his terrific quartet pondering, meditating, respecting the stillness between the notes. That’s typical of ECM recordings but never more so than here. Each note played on its own completely, uncluttered, actually having a beginning and an end.

Still, I’m not sure I could have expected the frenetic, frantic drumming of Jarle Vespestad early in the album on “Eg Veit I Himmerik Ei Borg” (A Castle in Heaven), a reworked traditional Norwegian hymn.

Nor did I see coming, amidst so much meditation, the body swaying melodic tenor saxophone of Tore Brunborg on “Staying There.” This is jazz after all by fine jazz musicians.

But oh so serious. I’m an American and as a result sometimes raucously irreverent and I wonder if anyone ever cracks up or cracks wise during these recording sessions. Laughter now and then, please.

There’s something of the album’s theme in the title “Staying There,” not racing forward as in the modern age but holding still to sense something deeper.

I suppose, though, that the album’s real theme is stated more accurately though less satisfyingly on the following track, “Silent Spaces.” The previously cited silent spaces between fully expressed notes seem to summarize the album, its musical approach, the ECM credo.

Throughout, Mars Eilertsen’s double bass unites with Vespested’s drumming to form the foundation of all.

As noted, this is serious stuff and it’s not always easy for the untrained ear and paced rather slowly for usual American tastes. Yet it holds. It holds.

Near the end of the album “Glow” is in perfect tempo with the snow falling outside my window as I write this review. Norwegians know snow. It is part of their spirit, after all.

The Frank DiBussolo Group: Songs to Write Home About (lostworldmusic)

So they put this little combo together in Allentown, Pennsylvania, from whence my mother’s Italian side of the family hails. And the guy heading the band is Frank DiBussulo. And they do American songbook tunes from the World War II era (see album cover) which was my parents’ generation, and they expect me to be objective about the album. Nah.

I liked it before I heard it and anyway any time I seem to be objective I’m probably really not. It’s about music I like or at least respect or I wouldn’t be writing about it.

But boy I really like this album now that I’ve heard it and singer Tiffany Grochowski’s singing is as much of a revelation to me as DiBussolo’s oh so smooth guitar.

Lets talk Grochowski first because this gal should be a star. She’s that good.

She’s so exuberant and playful on the early tunes — “I’m Beginning to See the Light,” “I Can’t Give You Anything But Love” — alternately so wide eyed and sultry that I wonder if she’ll manage the erotic subtlety of “Teach Me Tonight.” She does.

She slides just as comfortably into the romantic sense of “Moonglow” and the sauciness of “Do Nothing Till You Hear From Me.”

In fact my biggest disappointment of the album is that “Don’t Get Around Much Anymore” is done as an instrumental. Not that it isn’t good, it’s fine, but I was so looking forward to hearing Tiffany’s take on the tune and lyrics.

Speaking of instrumentals, “East of the Sun (West of the Moon)” really showcases DiBussolo’s guitar work. He’s one of those musicians whose playing just seems to flow naturally like he was born playing. Know what I mean? Sinatra singing. Armstrong playing. It’s what they do.

He’s just as good supporting as leading and he’s clearly a generous spirit to frequently step back to let Tiffany G’s vocals soar. He didn’t put the band together just to feature himself and that’s not so common, is it?

This is jazz for the club, the cabaret, not the concert hall. It’s jazz for dancing and drinking and forgetting your troubles and the War, if just for the night.

The singer out front, the gifted guitarist playing lead. Steven Liu’s upright bass and Bryan Tuk’s drums behind. Guest Gregory Edwards sits in on sax or clarinet on some numbers.

Good stuff.

But at the end it’s just Tiffany’s voice and DiBussolo’s guitar on “My Buddy.” I hadn’t thought about that sentimental old saw in a long time. My Dad liked that tune and he had a tendency to name dogs Buddy.

Old times made new.

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To read more posts, reviews and columns by Brian Arsenault click HERE.

By Brian Arsenault

Daniel Kirkpatrick and The Bayonets

Alibis (Rock Ridge Music)

About the time I’m thinking well this guy and his three piece band are maybe more “singer/songwriter” than rock. I mean you can understand just about all the lyrics. Does this guy understand rock ‘n roll. Does he?

But after two kinda boring if heartfelt tunes at the start, we get to the title track with its classic rock harmonies and foot tapping seduction and I go, Heyyy. “This Way” follows and I’m bouncing along and it is pleasing, melodic (think CSN) definite rock.

Honestly, I think the era of self produced albums has meant a loss of the value of professional producers. You have to lead with your best, not a couple filler tunes.

By “Don’t Leave Me Waiting” I realize that the underneath sound I’ve been digging is a drummer, Spencer Booth, who just keeps growing on you. The whole album does.

I think Kirkpatrick, who must be in his late twenties by now, is having some trouble leaving high school behind, but that can be hard for an American kid. What’s after high school, after all? CNN and Target.

“I don’t know you now but I knew you then.” Kirkpatrick says he has found his voice. I believe him. Better things ahead.

There’s a feel here of music that you can wrap yourself in. A caring soul, rare enough in music or anywhere these days. Music that gets you reflective. And there’s something of art in that, eh?

“All I Can Take” definitely has a Who kind of depth of feeling. And again those drums. I’m not saying Keith Moon here but. . .

“Emerald Blues in A Minor,” the rather pompously titled last cut, is at least a blues tribute missing from much rock these days. (More about that later.)

And on the last three songs just mentioned, the lyrics are a lot less clear. Rock on.

Black Belt Karate

Vol. 1 (Organic Audio)

About the time I’m really liking their energy on “Push” but thinking Black Belt Karate never does a change of pace, they do. On the really haunting (just in time for Halloween) “Building Walls.”

“Surprise, surprise” the song’s lyric says — good lyrics to despair by but loving in their own way. No such lovey stuff as they return to speed rock on “Kaleidoscope.” “You’re a bummer and a bitch. Baby, you’re obnoxious.”

I guess the war of the sexes continues and just as I was thinking these Millennial rockers with their album, Vol. 1, are a long way from the blues and r&b which are the base of the form. Yet you still hear a distant echo of Little Richard on “Lucille.”

For the most part though, BBK (which would be a better name, I think) is related to closer generations: a bit of ZZ Top on “Rigamortis”; Metallica on “Servant”; later Alice in Chains and maybe some Stone Temple Pilots.

So of course this is muscular rock not made for easy listening. More like shake a few brain cells loose during a live performance. But hey the album was produced and recorded by a guy named Achilles, ergo what else would you expect.

Five songs and about a quarter hour on this EP, available online, I’m sure, in all those places I don’t go to, as well as in CD format.

Also expect powerhouse drumming from Ryan Brown who squeezes in some well timed silences in the manic beating. Ryan Hanifl’s vocals sometimes seem derivative but he can surprise with emotional range on songs like the aforementioned “Building Walls” and “Kaleidoscope.”

Where Hanifl really shines, though, is on the band’s separate cover of Oingo Boingo’s magnificent tribute to “Wild Sex (In the Working Class).” A single, how about that, a single. Guess we’ll see more of that in the age of “all major digital stores.” Available now.

But what a recording. Super yearning, horny vocal. Guitarist Jason A. Mezillis (A for Achilles, see!) gets to do more than pound two chords fast. A fine little harmonica solo by somebody.

BBK “may be greasing the wheels of a noisy factory” — you know, Joni Mitchell might actually like that line — but with panache.

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To read more posts, reviews and columns by Brian Arsenault click HERE.

Three from the Stones in White Vinyl

Reissues of:

“Let It Bleed” “Beggars Banquet” and “Hot Rocks 1964-1971″ (ABKCO Music and Records))

By Brian Arsenault

I almost don’t have to listen to any of these records. Oh, not because I haven’t heard any of this — just a few tune titles stumped me for a moment — but because they are all branded into my brain for years, nay, decades. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t or I won’t. I’m listening to “Factory Girls” right now.

First of all , the albums are reissued in glorious vinyl and sound like records, not sterile digital unfeeling CDs. And it’s a clear vinyl to boot, kinda weird when handling but just as good sound quality as the black vinyl version. It’s just that the black vinyl always had that air of mystery, a dangerous black box about to be opened to the mind.

But enough of that, these are the Stones, man, long before they became geezers, back when their fans argued endlessly about which was the best of their many albums.

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The press piece announcing the release of the albums on May 28 says that “many,” whoever they are, consider Let It Bleed the best of all. Well, it does include the soaring “Gimme Shelter,” the deeply felt tribute song “Love In Vain” and the ever dangerous “Midnight Rambler,” which seems scarier today in these scarier times.

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Yet would you overlook Beggers Banquet with the slyly demonic “Sympathy for the Devil” — another song that seems somehow more fitting for the current era — along with the scorching “Street Fighting Man?” It was also the last full album with the late Brian Jones.

Jones has long since fallen out of favor in the Stones’ legend, but he was the guy who ran the ad that led to the band’s formation and he could play just about any instrument given 15 minutes or so to learn it. No, he couldn’t step back for Jagger’s prominence, but even longtime pal Keith Richards, especially Keith, knows what a pain Mick can be.

And I don’t want to argue too much about which album is best. But for me it’s Exile on Main Street that is the most coherent object d’art. And Get Yer Ya Yas out is one fine “live” album.

Anyway, the third album of the trio about to be re-released, Hot Rocks 1964-1971, is a fine sampler of Stones stuff from early recordings up through Let It Bleed selections and a bit beyond. The uninitiated and the young may benefit most from this compilation. Or, you could buy them all if coin of the realm isn’t in short supply these days. It’s all good.

Listening to much younger Stones on these albums almost makes me wish they’d stop touring. That scary picture on the new Rolling Stone Magazine kinda tells you why. Except every time I’ve seen them in concert in recent years, in person or on film, I’m struck by how good Keith and Charlie especially still are.

Mick jumping about is just a bit geriatric but he’s earned it, hasn’t he? And he doesn’t have to use a walker yet.

Hey, as my son Kurt says, Richards was always an old guy, wasn’t he? He seems better that way, even though we’re all rather surprised he made it this far. Bet he is too.

Anyway, they didn’t end up like Elton playing night after night in Vegas. Didn’t you always figure that‘s where “Tiny Dancer“ was bound?

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To read more posts, reviews and columns by Brian Arsenault click HERE.

Of Americana Rock, American Tenor Sax and American Genius Reprised

By Brian Arsenault

The range of great American music never ceases to amaze me. When they’re writing about our civilization, such as it is, a number of centuries hence I am quite sure it will be our music that is most treasured and remembered. Unless the whole grid collapses, of course.

Steven Casper & Cowboy Angst

Trouble (Silent City Records)

There is just no disputing the good time of bad times this EP (not LP) provides the listener. Five tunes, one done twice, to take you deep into the heart of American music done road house bounce — blues, r&b, zydeco, Tex-Mex, Looziana all tied up in a just dazzling display. In other words, rock and roll to delight the soul.

What Casper and his new Cowboy Angst lineup understand is that it’s all connected. From the hills of West Virginia to the Delta. From Nashville to New York. At its best, it’s all American music. The Band knew that and so does Casper.

“Cat On A Hot Tin Roof” opens the proceedings and rightly so; a nasty tasty blues/gospel tune you won’t hear in church, with two McCrary sisters singing backup to Casper’s lead vocal. In this version, it’s the guy who’s the cat.

Then here comes “Soul Deep”. Real nice lap steel guitar by John Groover McDuffie. Tom Petty would probably have a hit with this.

“I know where you end is the start of me.”

The title song is pure Louisiana barroom rock. How can trouble make you feel so good.

“I don’t go looking for trouble. Trouble comes looking for me.”

But the absolute gem of the album is “How Can I Miss You When You’re Not Gone?” Keeps the Cajun going and the irony can’t be missed.. The song is repeated as a “front porch” instrumental with banjo and fiddle to finish out the album. But the first version will make you dance alone if there’s no one to dance with.

“Hey Marie” reaches way back to the 1950s to what Don and Phil Everly might have cut with Chuck Berry if songs could have been so damn bad back then without being censored or masqueraded. Chuck knew how to do that.

Marie writes on the wall: “Had a real good time. Don’t bother to call.” Years later he sees their history “while standing in the grocery line.”

This little album is so good we might not deserve it. But it’s here this summer.

Noah Preminger

Haymaker (Palmetto Records)

Something special your way comes on May 14.

Noah Preminger, like Hemingway, boxes. And like Hemingway he’s clear and concise. He wants you to get it without the merely decorative and overly descriptive. Here, here it is. Hear it.

On Haymaker, his tenor sax is moody and reflective at times — think Hawkins — as on the opening tune “Morgantown.” Lovely and cool at other times — as on “Tomorrow,” whether you liked the musical Annie or not.

All saxophones played well are great to me, but tenor is the most satisfying; expressive and deeply touching. It’s why Kerouac called players of the instrument “tenorman.” They were special. Still are.

There are good songs all over the place. Preminger can’t remember what girl he wrote “My Blues for You” for, so it’s for all the girls you’ve loved. Ben Mondor’s guitar solo picks up Preminger’s mood but it almost hurts when his horn breaks off.

Monder steps out front in the intro to his composition “Animal Planet.” Real smooth. Then Preminger comes in with such melodic lines. A real favorite of mine.

On “Stir My Soul” and elsewhere, drummer Colin Stranahan sometimes annoys with his insistent pounding. Oh, he’s good but he doesn’t need to fill every available space. More Charlie Watts, less Keith Moon, please. Or listen to the next album (see below).

Still, he’s fine on the Dave Matthews song “Don’t Drink the Water.” The band makes you feel so good here as they start real smooth, go off into space and then return to the song’s melody.

“Motif Attractif” is a sweet little sendoff to close the album.

Preminger’s playing — ascending, descending, roaming, retuning — is just so sensitive to tonality, melody, timing and the other musicians that he is special to hear.

A haymaker in boxing can produce a knockout all on its own.

Terri Lyne Carrington

Money Jungle Provocative in Blue (Concord Blue)

Shoot for the top. Can’t hurt and it might work.

Drummer supreme Terri Lyne Carrington does just that with a reworking of Duke Ellington’s remarkable trio recording Money Jungle with Charles Mingus and Max Roach. She gathers up the superb piano of Gerald Clayton and bassist Christian McBride with a few others and nails it.

I’m kinda late reviewing this album that came out during the winter but it got buried in the stack and just has to be paid homage to the way she pays homage to Ellington.

Even when she throws in a few of her own songs she seems true to the Duke. I think he would have liked them. A lot. And Clayton gets his own cut, “Cut Off,” which also resonates as a true Ellington descendant.

But the Ellington tunes, oh yeah. A money hating downer narrative leading us into the album is overridden by the joyousness of the music that follows. Clayton’s piano complemented just perfectly by Carrington’s drumming. She understands that the spaces are as important as the hits.

The only jarring note in the tune “Money Jungle” is the music being interspersed with speech clips from various politicians. Doesn’t do much for me. Money may be the enemy of art, but try paying the rent without the coin from gigs and recordings. Politicians don’t do anything for art or anyone. They don’t make things better for anybody but themselves.

But back to Ellington’s music. “Fleurette Africain” demonstrates beautifully Mingus’ quote in the liner notes about simplicity.

“Anybody can play weird; that’s easy (and) making the simple complicated is commonplace. What’s hard is to be as simple as Bach. Making the simple, awesomely simple… That’s creativity.”

You’ll get it when you hear it. Simple. Note to note. Chord to chord. Builds, weaves but always simple. You hear every bit of it.

Same with “Backward Country Boy Blues,” with “Switch Blade,” with all of the Ellington compositions so lovingly handled here.

The wrap comes with “Rem Blues/Music” and the recitation of an Ellington poem within.

“Music is a woman . ..

When you think what you think,

She already knows”

Terri Lyne knows.

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To read more posts, reviews and columns by Brian Arsenault click HERE.

Sometimes a Reviewer’s Just Lucky

Three Very Different Albums Connected Only by Their Excellence

By Brian Arsenault

Spin Doctors

If the River Was Whiskey (Rufus Records)

If you’re a ‘90’s kid, chances are you can still remember the words to Spin Doctors’ “Pocket Full of Kryptonite” and that favorite guy anthem to the hated former girl friend/bitch, “Little Miss Can’t Be Wrong.” I mean was there ever a nastier tune on hit radio and was a band bigger than Spin Doctors in the era?

So 25 years down the road, what is a listener to expect? Maybe not expected, but one sizzling blues album is what you get.

Hey, you can’t be a teen band forever, but these guys can do this till they’ve been around a half century.

“If the River Was Whiskey, (you’d) have no trouble drowning me.” Hell of a lyric, hell of a song.

Chris Barron’s voice is deeper than in the early days. Whiskey? Cigs? Or just the passage of time. It works.

And Eric Schenkman’s guitar can flash it like he’s playing for Billy Boy Arnold, or do the slow hand. The rhythm section of Aaron Comess on drums and Mark White on bass are tight as can be.

The whole band is.

There’s some Howlin’ Wolf (title song) here and some Allman Brothers feel (“Scotch and Water Blues”) as well. Yet the Spin Doctors are their own self.

On tunes like “What My Love?” it’s real hard to sit still. “Scotch and Water Blues” just builds and builds and “About a Train” has a nice Delta flavor suitable for roadhouses.

The album makes you ache a bit for smoky bars smelling of beer and less savory stuff. But the playing is real clean.

Bracher Brown

Broken Glass and Railroad Tracks (Rock Ridge Music, digital only)

A tough old businessman of Irish heritage that I knew and valued until his death said that one of the worst prejudices was that a young person couldn’t do a good job, maybe better.

So here comes Bracher Brown who makes you think that if the Beatles had been born in America under 20 years ago, this is what they might have sounded like. Intelligent lyrics about the start of love, the end of love, the desire for love. Rhythms that we used to call infectious. Seductive guitar licks.

“Singing songs about what life was supposed to be.”

Young but not untested in the furnace of life.

“Haven’t slept in days but I’m all right.”

Even acquainted with absence that may be death —

“living with your ghost.”

And a love song — “Loving You” — that rings true; a song about what he knows about life at 18 that’s not to be patronized. After all, we may never know more, we may just shut down and call it experience.

He’s not shut down at all. Thank goodness.

Quattro

Poppzzical (Quattro Sound)

Ok, so you know there are four of them on Poppzzical. Mixed gender (two of each), mixed ethnicity, mixed musical backgrounds. So, of course, all American in all our splendid, confusing mishmash of cultures that often produces remarkable music.

There’s a violin, often gypsy-like (Lisa Dondlinger). She can play for Pavarotti or Dancing with the Stars.

Are you starting to get the picture? They can match the exuberance of their own crafted “Good Day” — “try to bring me down will be time wasted” — with some Vivaldi done as classical sound with jazz shifts.

There’s a guitar which can lead and support, strum and sing (Kay-Ta Matsuno) who can play for Baby Face or Natalie Cole and a whole bunch of other folks too numerous to name here.

Finally there’s percussion work born in Tijuana, Mexico (Jorge Villanueva) who’s played on movie scores, in Latino bands and co-owns a film and TV scoring company.

So, as you can imagine, there’s a lot going on in this album they’ve made.

“Silky” is happy and melancholy at the same time. There’s a guitar solo that resembles a violin piece. Or is that a violin with cello as bass. Or both. Ha, I don’t care. It’s music that’s unique. I can’t think of any assemblage that sounds like Quattro.

Their Spanish language soul and Latino dance music. If I could samba I would have on “Mi Conguero.“ That may even be the wrong dance but it’s the right feeling.

The album closes with “Hana Bi” and the guitar and violin take flight together. The cello soars after them.

And maybe that’s it: flying, soaring, breaking free of forms while paying homage to them. In a musical world of too much sameness, the individuality and creativity of this young group is not to be missed.

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To read more posts, reviews and columns by Brian Arsenault click HERE.

Not Fade Away After Half a Century

By Brian Arsenault

Vinylphiles rejoice. If you still have a vinyl player that turns at 45 revolutions per minute, ABKCO has a very special treat indeed for you in honor of Record Store Day this Saturday (April 20). Remarkably, there are 700 independent record stores still around in the USA and most still sell vinyl as well as CDs. On Saturday, you can pick up some Rolling Stones and Animals recordings previously issued only in the UK in 1964 and ‘65.

I wonder how many people alive today have never even seen a 45 let alone listened to one. I’m betting most under 50 – 55. And an extended play (EP) mono 45? Extraordinary.

But even if the recording arcana bores ya, the music won’t, especially the Stones early work.

The Rolling Stones

Five by Five(Reissue by ABKCO Music and Records)

How genuine these kids played, working to stay true to the rhythm and blues of their idols. This was before the Stones became “the world’s greatest rock n roll band,” before Brian Jones died after alienating just about everybody else in the group, long ahead of Bill Wyman getting bored with the whole thing and retiring.

Five songs by the five guys (plus one abused “member”) recorded at the famed Chess Records in Chicago during their first American tour. Richards recently said that bands should record in the midst of tours when they’re “hot.”

There’s heat here from the jumping version of Chuck Berry’s “Around and Around” to the bouncing instrumental “2120 South Michigan Avenue” led by the fine organ work of Ian Stewart who was bounced out of the band for the wrong look and “six was too many.”

Until his death in 1985, Stewart is all over Stones’ recordings and concerts but was never accorded band member status. Pete Best wasn’t the only casualty of the marketing of these early “British Invasion Bands” and Oldham was as big a jerk and control freak as Epstein.

But back to the music.

Jagger drags and drawls his way distinctively through “If You Need Me,” written by the truly wonderful and under appreciated Wilson Pickett. “Confessin the Blues” can now be played along black blues classics without a bit of hesitation. It’s that good.

The album makes you ache for stuff this true to the form. Maybe on their new world tour they could tuck Five by Five into the middle of the set somewhere and do all five. Of course, they’re only four now because the bass player doesn’t get to be a real member. Ah, show biz.

The Animals

the animals is here

the animals are back (both reissues by ABKCO Music and Records)

In the same 1964-65 period that the Stones did “Five by Five,” the Animals issued two mono EPs in the UK and were sprung from some of the same roots, black blues and r&b with maybe a bit more attention to folk.

At least one major folk song so old its exact roots are unknown and argued about:

The magnificent “House of the Rising Sun” propelled the Animals to a status approaching the Beatles and the Stones. Really, this one hit — transferring a fallen life from a poor young girl to a downtrodden guy — provided Eric Burdon with a format that would remain unequalled in his career. Alan Price on organ was the perfect complement to Burdon’s vocal and the song sent the band’s popularity through the roof.

The band wasn’t as good musically as the Stones; their instrumental breaks were very ordinary and closer to pop. They seem at times a bit cheesy now except on “I’m Crying” where Price’s organ is again strong. But boy that Eric could sing.

On the animals are back he does a great cover of the immortal Sam Cooke’s “Bring it on Home to Me.” No one could do it as well as Sam, but Burdon came close and brought his own deep soulful style to it.

The Animals achieved a second surge of popularity in the USA (and Viet Nam) with “We’ve Gotta Get Out of this Place,” which inexplicably became an anthem at the dances of privileged college kids, and very understandably among grunts hoping not to die in Nam. Again, Burdon’s deep resonant voice is just perfect to express the longing of British working class kids.

He’s also strong on “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood” when it seemed he might be a great blues singer in the making. But thematically, this fine song seems now to have been a preview of Burdon’s self absorption with being the coolest guy in the world. Didn’t happen, but boy could he sing. And he still can.

(BTW, never could find out why they fixed the plural subject-verb agreement in the second album. Of course, if you view “The Animals” as a singular noun, then it’s the second album that’s ungrammatical. Oh well.)

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To read more posts, reviews and columns by Brian Arsenault click HERE.